7 Reasons Why Ghostbusters 2 Is the Worst

Hey, if you're the kind of person who's super mad about the idea that Ghostbusters 3 will be a franchise reboot starring an all-women cast, you're sorta a huge idiot. Have you seen the script? Have you sat in on creative meetings? Unless you're some high-powered movie exec, the answer is probably a big ol' "nope," so your judgment of something based on the casting alone is pretty off-base. Besides, do you remember what the other option was? It was Dan Aykroyd's singular goal for the last couple years to mount HIS vision of Ghostbusters 3, which would have involved the sad, old husks of the originals being trotted out for one last unoriginal adventure. Thank god Bill Murray basically kiboshed the whole thing repeatedly, lest we be exposed to a paranormal comedy version of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

But if you really think Paul Feig's lady-fied Ghostbusters is the thing that's gonna ruin the franchise, I got some bad news for you: the franchise already WAS ruined...by Ghostbusters 2. Here's why:

1. The bad guy's plan is literally to become a helpless baby and hope everything sorta works out?

Okay, forget for a moment how incredibly lame it is that the main villain of the film is a painting. That really isn't my big complaint here - although that IS a pretty major downgrade from the physical embodiment of an ancient Sumerian god. No, my main complaint about Vigo the Carpathian is that his plan was the stupidest goddamn shit in the entire world.

Vigo's ingenious plot was to possess Oscar, Sigourney Weaver's kinda ugly baby (sorry, I don't like to get too judgmental with baby looks, but that's an ugly baby). Like, what's his PLAN here? To possess the baby and then....? Like, hope Dana just continues to raise him until he's pretty able-bodied? And then what? Be a gawky teen with the mindset of an ancient warlord?

And that's assuming Dana (or Peter MacNicol, I guess) raises him. Because he'll be in the body of a completely helpless baby for YEARS. That's some kind of super-torture - to have the mental capacity of a grown adult, but trapped in the body of a baby who can barely crawl.

In summary, this painting had a pretty stupid plan.

2. Emotion slime. EMOTION SLIME.

Haha, oh right - the ENTIRE PLOT of Ghostbusters 2 completely hinges on the existence of...emotion slime. EMOTION SLIME. Slime that reacts to emotions, for some reason, and exists in the movie seemingly without explanation - did Vigo bring it to the underground of New York? Did the slime's existence there awaken Vigo? Are the two totally unrelated? It's never made very clear (although there is an explanation in the somewhat recent Ghostbusters videogame, I'm not going to repeat it here because I will not pretend that emotion slime deserves an explanation).

It's a baffling plot device - incredibly specific in what it is and does, but they never even attempt to give it any context or meaningfully tie in into the main story. It's just...there, a weird excuse to allow the Ghostbusters to have another giant thing walking through the streets of NYC. And beyond all that, it's responsible for maybe the worst part of Ghostbusters 2 - where the whole city unites to sing a song so that the niceness emotions blow up the slime casing around the museum.

Note: to be entirely fair, it's also responsible for the BEST part of the movie - when Jackie Wilson's "Higher & Higher" is played and the slime gets so pumped it up that it lets the Ghostbusters control the Statue of Liberty with a goddamn NES Advantage joystick.